1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus within a recirculating feeder which, when coupled to a copier, can operate in either collate or noncollate modes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A recirculating feeder can selectively make either collate or noncollate copies of a number of documents. As is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 27,976 and application Ser. No. 523,610, now abandoned, by using a recirculating feeder, several collate copies of a multi-page original can be produced by a copier. Such a recirculating feeder feeds individual sheets in succession from the bottom of a stack to the exposure platen and returns each sheet to the top of the stack while maintaining the original orientation. After each of the sheets have been fed once, they can either be fed again or be removed from the feeder. Therefore, if the feeder is in the collate mode of operation, and since the copy pages are delivered from the copier in the same order as the original pages, collation of the copy pages by a sorter accessory is unnecessary.
There is a problem with this type of apparatus however. If an operator has inadvertently depressed the collate button rather than the noncollate button when, for example, there is only a single document to be copied ten times, this document will be recirculated ten times resulting in unnecessary document handling. If the operator had depressed the noncollate button, the original would have been circulated only once.